A Spanish man skipped work for a whole decade and nobody noticed

What’s bad is: that we all have to go to work. Really terrible, that we have to do that - go to work, and earn money, and not just sit in our pants all day screaming and stamping doughnuts into the carpet. Like, most of us have to sit hunched over at a desk, banging on a keyboard, leg vibrating for a full eight hours under the desk, life slowly draining away, the only solace being that soon you will be able to be hunched over, vibrating your leg, but on a sofa, at home. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just be on that sofa all the time? And still get paid for it?

Like if, for a good ten years, we could make everyone think that we were coming into work, but not actually do it? That’s the dream, right there, the absolute dream. Which is why we have the utmost respect for Carles Recio, an archives director in Valencia’s provincial government, who did that exact thing.

Every morning he would come into the office, clock in, head home, then clock out at the end of the day before heading home again - all the while collecting his €50 grand yearly paycheque. We’ll say it again: the dream, the tooty-fruity dream.

His beautiful scheme - second only to the American man who outsourced his entire job to China, paying just a fifth of what he earned while he watched cat videos and browsed Reddit - only came to light when some killjoys got suspicious (after ten years!) and alerted their superiors; now he’s been given a nine-year suspension from public posts, for a “flagrant neglect of the essential duties inherent to the work post”. Crucially though, he’s managed to escape prosecution - much to the anger of local authorities - as the state attorneys did not consider his digression an actual crime.

He spoke to the Spanish TV channel La Sexta, saying:

“I do documentation work out of the office, the work of a slave.

“Working like a slave means that I work so that others get the fruit of my labour.”

“Hi Carles, was just wondering if you could help with - oh, sorry, can see you’re busy, will check back later.”

However, the Valencian tribunal that doled out his punishment wouldn’t bite, noting that investigations had failed to turn up any record of actual work he claimed to have done over the last ten years. They also didn’t buy his excuse that he wasn’t at his desk because they’d forgotten to give him one after an office relocation - good one, very good one, that.

One thing they did do, though, was criticise the provincial Government at which he worked, cussing them out over their assignment of work spaces, saying Mr Recio “became comfortable in the situation that benefited him”. They followed up this damning jab by saying that the entire thing wouldn’t have been possible “without the acquiescence or the disinterest of the administration for which he worked.”

Not his fault, basically. Get ignored at work, stop coming in - it’s all very easy. For example, I’m writing this from a beach in Spain. Nobody knows I’m here. They won’t even read this sentence, probably. Been doing it for a whole year now. I’m surprised that pile of cabbage with a wig on it that I left on my seat in the office hasn’t gone mouldy yet. It’s a miracle the sunglasses haven’t fallen off.

Oh well, I’m off for another pina colada - eat it, suckers!

(Image: Getty)

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Shortlist writer and "the least woke person in the office", Gary Ogden, likes horror movies, Cheestrings, tapping his leg under the desk, "having a drink", hiding from responsibility, screaming into the mirror whenever he is alone, and assorted other things. Mainly the screaming thing though.
@garyblogden